Census Takers Launch Intensive Effort to Count Homeless Populations
Census takers are stocking up on reflective vests, face masks, bug spray, and flashlights as they head out on nighttime missions in groups of four to count the toughest population to enumerate in the 2020 census: people experiencing homelessness.
Census takers will fan out to shelters, soup kitchens, stops where mobile food vans make rounds, and other places throughout the country known homelessness magnets for three days and nights. Then, they will spend parts of three consecutive nights at encampments under bridges, in designated transit stations and other public outdoor living areas.
Delayed by six months due to the global pandemic, this operation ranks as among the most complex logistical activities undertaken by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Some 49,000 locations across the country have been identified, including more than 33,000 outdoor encampments, nearly 10,000 shelters and 5,000 soup kitchens, according to Al Fontenot, associate director of the bureau, speaking at an advisory committee meeting last week.
“We are making every effort to make sure that no one is left out of the count,” Fontenot said.
Census Takers Face Challenges in Accurately Counting Homeless Populations Amid Warm Weather
Census takers are faced with particular challenges from the mildness of winter so far. And making matters worse, most homeless shelters in the region have capacity utilization averaging between 25% and 50% due to coronavirus precautions. These factors have unsettled homeless advocates regarding the Census Bureau’s capacity to find and count all those housed on the streets.
As stated by Mike Arnold, the president and CEO of the Midnight Mission-an organization that provides bedding, food, and rehabilitation for those struggling with drug addiction at Skid Row in Los Angeles-it would take meticulous counting of each street and place where homeless people might be housed. This includes those said to be sleeping underneath overpasses, in front of doors, behind bushes, and in tents.
As any census enumerator might attest, homeless individuals are typically more dispersed when the weather is warm. “There’s usually less density around homeless shelters and service locations,” Arnold explains. In fact, he points out that the optimal months to count the homeless population would be during the darker, colder nights, when fewer people are out and about. “When it’s cold and dark, that’s when people are likely to be bedded down, making it easier to conduct an accurate count,” he adds.
Another challenge for census enumerators is that counting individuals who live outdoors will probably be the hardest part of the process for home enumeration. One of those researchers involved in homelessness research, Beth Shinn is a professor of psychiatry at Vanderbilt University; she comments on the task as mirroring the complexities that a census must undertake to ensure that everyone who is homeless gets counted in the census.
“People have good reason to be hidden when they’re outdoors, for safety reasons,” Shinn said. “People find places to be that aren’t necessarily visible to passersby.”
Homeless count gets underway as Census Bureau’s efforts to tally people residing in transitory housing will be wrapping up by the end of the month. The counting campaign has started early in this September with 12,500 census takers making visits over 60,000 RV parks, camps, marinas, and hotels where mobile residents often stay.
Enumerators continue to visit households listed in houses that have yet to respond to the 2020 census. This is a very crucial census because it dictates $1.5 trillion in federal spending yearly and determines the number of congressional seats allocated to each state.
Field operations for the 2020 census are scheduled to close on September 30, unless the court rules in favor of granting a one-month extension that civil rights groups, cities, and counties have asked for.
Under both the counts of the homeless and the counts of people living in transitory housing, people will be counted at location at which they happen to be at the time of the count, not the place in which they were on April 1-the reference date for most U.S. residents. This partly because of fears of “recall bias,” the idea that a person cannot accurately remember where he or she was six months ago.
For the homeless count, census takers will conduct a simple head count if they encounter someone sleeping, rather than collecting additional demographic information such as race, sex, Hispanic origin, and age.
“Always remember to treat everyone with dignity and respect, no matter what,” reads a tip sheet provided to census takers involved in the homeless count.
Nowhere in the U.S. is the homeless crisis more evident than in downtown Los Angeles, where census takers observe hundreds of individuals living in makeshift shanties that line entire blocks of the notorious neighborhood known as Skid Row. Tents frequently emerge on the pavement outside City Hall, and encampments are increasingly visible in suburban areas, often found under freeway overpasses. A count conducted last January by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority revealed that more than 66,400 homeless individuals were living in Los Angeles County, marking an increase of over 12% from the previous year.
Census takers are also facing unique challenges due to wildfires in California and around major cities like Los Angeles, which have further complicated the state’s homeless crisis. Thousands of individuals have been temporarily displaced, prompting census takers to visit Red Cross shelters to count those who did not fill out their forms earlier.
“The question for me… is if they are counted at all,” expressed U.S. Rep. Jimmy Gomez, a Democrat from Los Angeles. “That is a big concern with wildfires raging across California.”
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